Urbanisation in Rural Regions: The Emergence of Urban Centres in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper focusses on urbanisation in rural regions of Africa, and in particular on the type of settlement growth that occurs not in proximity to, but rather disassociated from, existing urban centres. What characterises such settlements is that they are generally not acknowledged as urban entities, but are involved in an administrative process in which they form part of a larger entity that is about to be given urban administrative status; to capture this process, the concept of emerging urban centres is suggested. The empirical analysis focusses on how rural Tanzania is urbanising. By comparing four different growth trajectories, it is illustrated how settlement growth varies due to different pre-conditions and due to specific dynamics of crop value chains. It is also shown how migration to the settlements and the establishment of businesses are part of this growth and gradually occur detached from the crop value-chain dynamics. In conclusion, it is identified how these developments produce challenges to existing governance systems, and finally it is discussed how the findings provide new insights into debates on rural transformation and the fuzzy distinction between rurality and urbanity.

Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Consultative Research Committee for Development Research under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs under grant no. 09-P11-Tanzania. This research was a component of the research project ‘Rural–Urban Complementarities for the Reduction of Poverty (RUCROP): Identifying the Contribution of Savings and Credit Facilities’. Further insights on governance aspects were obtained through a research project ‘Rural–Urban Transformation (RUT): Economic Dynamics, Mobility and Governance of Emerging Urban Centers for Poverty Reduction’ under grant no. 13-P02-TAN. The project is coordinated through the School of Agricultural Economics and Business Studies, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania and implemented in partnership with the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Section for Geography, University of Copenhagen. We would like to thank the research participants in the four study sites.

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